The communications industry is rapidly changing to adjust to emerging technologies and ever increasing customer demand. This customer demand for new applications and increased performance of existing applications is driving communications network and system providers to employ networks and systems having greater speed and capacity (e.g., greater bandwidth). Dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) is being used to carry more traffic over a single optical fiber. As the name suggests, this technology transmits multiple signals simultaneously at different wavelengths on a same fiber. In one application, DWDM technology is being used to expand the bandwidth capacity of existing backbone networks. As more traffic is carried over a single fiber, maintenance of such fibers and equipment can have far reaching effects.